Intermediate licences for young drivers restrict the number of teenage passengers they may carry. What is the evidence-based reason for this restriction?

Why A is correct

The passenger restriction is one of the most direct translations of crash research into licensing law. Studies consistently find that a teen driver's fatal-crash risk multiplies with each teenage passenger aboard — distraction, social pressure and the subtle risk-emulation of a peer audience all push the same direction. The intermediate licence phases the exposure: solo driving first, when the core skill is being built, passengers later, when the skill can carry the added load. The restriction is not an insult to young drivers; it is the data's own recommendation, encoded.

Why the other options are wrong

B. To reduce wear on family vehicles used by teenagers

Vehicle wear is an economic concern that never appears in the licensing literature. The restriction targets the crash numbers, which scale with passengers at multiples, not percentages.

C. To ensure young drivers learn routes before carrying passengers

Route familiarity is part of graduated licensing generally, but the passenger cap addresses a distinct and measured effect — the peer-passenger multiplier — that route learning neither causes nor cures.

D. Because teenagers cannot legally be insured as passengers

Passenger insurance is a non-issue: passengers ride under the vehicle's coverage whatever their age, and no insurance doctrine bars teenagers from cars. The restriction is about what passengers do to the driver, not about their own insurability.

On the road

A newly licensed seventeen-year-old drives six months of solo school runs, incident-free. Then a carload of teammates after the game — jokes, phone out, soundtrack loud — and the right turn arrives at conversation speed instead of driving speed. The curb takes the hit instead of the oncoming lane. The restriction had been counting on exactly that carload: the crash risk it described was real, and it arrived with the passengers.

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